Vanity

 

You get itchy, sitting, with nothing going on, even in paradise.

No matter what happened last time, I eventually start thinking about next time. It's the same old endless Doofus Cycle.

Some people look for love in all the wrong places, over and over. Some quit one job and look for another, just like the old one. I make my own false moves in my own way, because of not having a tether, an anchor, at least one confidant, any circle of friends, or so I think. Could be I'm just a dickhead.

 

Morning, April 2, 2018.

With great hopes and vague plans I set off at the end of February last year to really get down and serious about doing some real backpacking while I was still able and had the ambition, and almost immediately went down in flames. I bought a great little vehicle. It was almost completely the wrong one, but still fine, truly fine, for what it was. I spent hundreds on new equipment, a lot of which did not get used, or only used once. I sewed up a new backpack of my own personal design. I thought about where I would go, and when, but made no intelligent plans, and then settled in to wait out the early-season weather until I could actually start backpacking.

Meanwhile the weather decided to outwait me.

It won. I lost.

Winter in western Washington can be nice. Especially if you're from North Dakota. My first winter, spent living in Port Angeles, and working in Sequim, was choice. It was the year of the winter without a winter.

 

Bedroom in the bush, April 2, 2018.

I'd finally finished a college degree, but ended up working in a lumber yard my last winter in North Dakota. Coldest day, in February, -35°F in the morning, with a high of -7°F around 2 p.m. (-37/-22°C) In the spring I took off, driving through most of the western states and ended up close to some people I knew who had already moved from The Land Of The Frozen Dead to the Port Angeles/Sequim area, and there I was, working in another lumber yard. Not a great job but it was enough.

And winter never came that year.

And if you have a place there, in western Washington, a fixed home of some kind, and want to get out, you can hike all year if you keep your expectations and altitude on the low side. There's snow higher, but in the lowlands are quite a few days with little rain, or light rain, and it's never too cold. I liked that. I used to hike all year when I lived in Washington, but it isn't the same if your home is a vehicle. Without a real home things are radically more uncomfortable.

 

 

So last year I got back there early. Early enough to have a huge selection of used vehicles, and I bought one. Then I was living in it, spending my days at the library and listening to rain hammer the car all night. March of last year was heavy with rain. April was worse. April set a record. It was engaging for a while. Fun. But...

I had been waiting for this chance to get back north and was willing to wait out the parts of the early season that needed waiting out. But...

 

 

I'd been in Ecuador sitting on my thumbs for quite a while. You apply for residency and even when the process is over you still have two years to go before it's finally finally over. You can be out of the country for a few days but not too long. After those first two years are up, a sort of probationary period, then you can leave for up to five years at a stretch, and not blow yourself out of the water. So in 2016 I was back in the U.S. for the summer, using up my "free" time, driving around and doing some fun backpacking, but was careful to be back in Cuenca within 85 days, leaving a five-day cushion in case of problems. That worked.

Fifteen months later, after lazing around, at the end of February, 2018, I was clear. My two years were done.

That brought me to 2018's spring.

 

 

Though March and April of 2018 were almost all rain in western Washington, May was not. May had only a few sprinkles to share with us, and was even a bit too warm — dry, dusty, warm. I drove into eastern Washington that month, to do some exploring while waiting for winter snows to begin melting away from the trails, but the weather in eastern Washington was even hotter. It was a disappointment. I'd effed up again. Every place I went was stifling and buggy. Living in the car I had no privacy and needed to drive many long miles from anywhere just to find enough privacy to sleep.

After a couple of weeks I gave up and was back in western Washington. The ocean sounded good — why not? I'd go backpacking along the coast, the way I used to do every long Thanksgiving weekend. I'd always loved it.

Even that was hot, and annoying. I was carrying a new, extremely expensive bear canister and discovered several new ways to hate something. After only one night the trip seemed pointless, so I gave up. Summer on the beach is different from winter on the beach. It's only summer, there is no mystery and little solitude with other people tromping through every few hours. Not my kind of experience. Well, meh.

 

 

I kept most of my things stored in a rented place, a four-foot by five-foot space. Even with plastic tubs to organize it all there wasn't enough room, and stuffing everything into tubs meant that I couldn't find anything. Any search took hours of digging for even a short outing, and since the car was too small for all of my things, I was permanently tethered to the locker.

Major failure point.

Well, there were other places to go. I decided on Hells Canyon before the weather turned terminally hot for the season.

Prepared. Bagged food, found a sad but possibly usable map, sorted the equipment, filled up on consumables, drove two days to get there, slept in the car, and woke to rain. After two hours of walking the parking lot in circles, debating the plus-minus of it all I got into the car and drove back west. Just gave up. Could not face it. Didn't know exactly why. Still don't.

 

 

It's different if you have friends or relatives, if you're in a group, if you have a home and a job and you're out there for your only two weeks off all year. But after you are cut loose and have no connections any more, even if you have enough money to squeak by on, and know what you're up to, a lot of times you still make silly choices, wrong choices, too many decisions that add up to nonsense and there's no one act as a governor. You're an engine without a flywheel — either stalled out or screaming to self-destruction.

You pace in circles inside your own mind. If you're alone all the time, any crazy idea can seem rational whenever it happens to scampers across your consciousness, so it was easy to tell myself that by far the best thing to do was to quit, give up on Hells Canyon, face west, and drive those 475 highway miles all over again without even spending a single night on the trail.

So there I was once more, stymied, spending days at the library and nights parked in Capitol Forest and not doing a damn thing.

 

 

But my pack worked. Yeah. The one I made. I'll have to see if I have enough information to post plans for it. They should be shared. If I was half as old as I am, I might try the backpacking equipment business. I have some ideas, but things are too far along now, with both me and the industry.

In 2002 I attended my first ALDHA-West Gathering. Heard Brian Robinson talk about his "calendar triple crown" thru-hike. Met Ron Moak and Henry Shires.

Brian Frankle was there too, founder of Ultralight Adventure Equipment, the first person to hike the Hayduke route. Neither Shires nor Moak was in business yet, but along with everyone else who wanted to pay attention, I got a chance to listen, and talk to them, and learn things, round up some ideas, and saw the the first Tarptent prototype either that year or the next when Henry Shires brought it along to show off.

 

 

I did get in two nights in the backcountry last year (How pathetic is this?), one on the beach, and one along the, as they say, West Fork of the Lower Skokomish River. One night in my new Hennessy Hammock. One two-mile hike in, using my new self-made custom pack, then back out the next morning. Everything worked fine, especially my pack, which is the best one I've ever used, but the trip seemed only tedious and I don't know why.

One more try — back to Olympic National Park, to hike up the Elwha Valley, hit the Low Divide, loop around Kimta Peak and tromp along the Skyline Ridge Trail, coming back up the North Fork of the Quinault River, and back out along the Elwha.

Didn't even start. Couldn't face it. Got up in the morning all packed and permitted and everything, and zip. Diddly-poo. Nothing. Had the desire to do all this and many more things, but when it came time to put feet on the trail, I had no interest.

And the heat.

The heat and living in the car, driving all over hell and back just to get to a shower in the morning, get to the library when it opened, hide out there all day, safe inside the bubble of air conditioning, drive to the supermarket to buy food for the day, drive 25 or 30 miles back out into the forest to try sleeping in a baking hot car. All crap. All my fault and I'm still not sure about any of it.

June was bad. July was hell. Temperatures in the mid 90s almost every day. Completely unusual, completely unavoidable, relentless.

It got to me. I couldn't wait to get away again. Now I'm back in Ecuador and bored. It's nice here as always, but I am bored.

At least I missed the fire season way up north. Two months of rain, then three dry bitchen-furious-hot months, then the fires. Western Washington was blanketed by deep thick opaque clouds of smoke toward the end of summer, but at least I was gone by then. I did see some photos out of Seattle — smoke so thick that people could hardly see to cross the street. Dangerous to even breathe. But I was back in Ecuador by then. I was OK. At least, for once.

Things are decent here in lots of ways. I came back convinced that maybe I just wanted to be old and not bother with anything else ever again. Get up, shower, have lunch, walk for a while, dink with my laptop, catch a little TV news, whatever. Not worry. Not be anything. Now I'm not sure. I'm like that, still untethered, rattling around, distracted by the undisciplined marbles in my head. Now maybe I want to try everything over again yet one more time etcetera and so on nevermind.

 

 

Pretend I'm 30 again and can make more huge wild leaps.

Now I'm almost convinced that it will be right this time if I plan it out. Could be. Could be? Really? No, no one knows nothing, least of all me.

The good news is that I can't, not now. I did promise to stay at least a year when reserving my apartment. That's through the end of August. And I don't have the cash saved yet anyway. It gets expensive buying a car every couple of years, driving it for a few months, and then selling it for half of what it's worth, even a used one. And air fare.

This is an expensive part of the world to get to, or to leave.

And if I do try roaming around again, what the hell am I going to buy? The only thing that makes sense is a cargo van. You can live in one. It's a box.

I did some looking once. Used, what you can get is 10 to 15 years old, has 150,000 to 250,000 miles on it, and tops out at 10 mpg in town or 13 on the highway, assuming that it won't break down before you get to the highway.

But one of those covers the bases. Park on any street and take a nap, have a bath, eliminate, change clothes, prepare and eat a meal, or all of the above, with privacy. No way to match this with a sedan, a hatchback, or an SUV. A minivan could be converted, maybe, after ripping out and discarding the seats, making it impossible ever to sell again.

Same (barely, maybe, possibly, who knows) with an SUV of the right type. Not too big, not too small, not too expensive. Not too much of anything good, or bad either. Not even a solution, just a compromising compromise.

I traveled just fine in my 1973 Toyota Corolla back in 1978. I worked with a guy who had bought a Volkswagen Bug in '57 and had removed the rear and passenger seats and replaced them with a plywood platform that he made. Brilliant. I copied that. Fantastic for traveling, especially back then. In 1978 I could travel for $10 a day, total. I can barely imagine what the western U.S. was like in 1957, but even in 1978 there was still lots of open country.

The conversion was easy too. The passenger seat and seatbelt came out after removing four bolts. The back seat bottom was fixed in place with two screws. Take those out, lift and pull in just the right way, then lift the rear seat-back off the two hooks holding it and you suddenly had your own version of the world's smallest RV. Whip something up from plywood and you could sleep in it and easily carry anything you needed. In addition to the trunk. Even more space there.

 

 

One night I pulled off the road near Point Reyes. It must have been just outside the town of Point Reyes Station, CA. There was a little cut in the side of the road and I drove off the pavement onto dirt, turned right, and stopped behind some trees, on a dirt track between them and the railroad tracks and stayed the night, no more than 100 feet from the highway, if that, in complete peace and solitude.

Another time in Oregon, it was getting late, and I simply drove off the highway and parked on the grass behind a guard rail no more than 50 feet off the pavement. It was quiet all night. No traffic. Gorgeous and quiet and simple and clean and unregulated in those days.

You can't do that now. Every small town has a traffic jam, even Libby, MT, last time I was there, in 1984 — about half a mile of bumpers and glare, crawling through the place on a shimmering-hot afternoon. The whole country is now full of hobby ranches and satellite housing developments and gates and fences. All the little turnouts and short stub roads leading nowhere are blocked or fenced or patrolled, but even a few decades ago things were really loose.

So assuming that I am really stupid, or desperate, or flat crazy, and I do head north again, and intend to really get it right this time, because it may be my last chance to have an adventure before my retinas rip loose or Mr Cancer finds my address, or I'm just too old to even come close to actually driving any more, then what? What kind of vehicle would work?

I already know the answer, and it is "Nothing you can get in the U.S." Makes me even more crazy than I usually am. I see them parked all over Cuenca or being driven around as if nothing, you know?

 

 

I think practically of what I could get, the best would likely be a Nissan Rogue. One of the "small" SUVs. After what research I did a year ago, it has the best compromise of an overall small size with relatively the most interior room, shortest wheelbase, most ground clearance, best mileage (considering), best reputation, smallest engine, most rational features.

While in for service, my Nissan Versa Note had to stay overnight, so they gave me a Rogue to take "home". It was so new and shiny that it still felt a little warm from the oven. Nice. Surprisingly, although it was bigger inside, it wasn't obviously bigger. It definitely did feel more massive. Give it gas when the light turns green and you first feel the vehicle hunch down and tighten all its muscles before beginning to move. Definitely heavier than what I was used to. Handled well. Stopped well, all that, but even as one of the smaller SUVs it seemed wasteful. I'd probably go totally nuts if stuck with a "full-sized" van.

Yeah right sure. Vans are available. Nissan makes a small one, and Ford too. Chevrolet used to sell a rebranded Nissan NV200, but no longer, so that leaves two maybe-affordable possibilities, but I could not spare months for slow shopping until a good used one appeared, so it would have to be new. So something new in the range of $27,000 to $32,000 after taxes, and then you've got a wide ungainly, relatively low-slung box that does not use fuel efficiently, and where can you go with that anyway?

Anything I got would require severe compromises.

Latin America is almost choked with small vans though. Stuff you'll never dream of seeing in the U.S. The tiniest one apparently hasn't been made since around 1989. See some of the photos here. That one was manufactured by Daihatsu, distributed by Suzuki, and sold as a Chevrolet. It had a 999cc three-cylinder engine and was barely large enough to jam four people into unless they were really good friends. It was superseded by a Chinese-made van that looks a lot better, sold as a Chevrolet N200. Beyond these, there are various oddball Citroën, Renault, Chery, Great Wall, Hyundai, Toyota, and who-knows-what vehicles banging around town here.

 

 

Enough to keep me thinking. To keep me stimulated. Maybe over-stimulated.

Having ideas isn't always good.

Having ideas isn't always good, but I can't stop walking and when I go out for a walk I get lots of ideas.

Christine the "German Tourist" is no help. No help on the large issue, logistics, which she says is the Big Critical Factor in all her travels. Nothing. No help on the "how to" part — how to get around all of Europe and the U.S. without a fixed home if in fact she does not have one, or her own transportation.

Cam Honan — same deal. The guy is all over and back and beyond but how does he do it? No clue. Not a single peep. Not a chirp, squeak, or twitter about it.

Sweetpea and Beardoh? Nope.

Ultrapedestrian? Nada. Don't bother even looking.

Blanks all over. "I went here and did this and it took six or eight or twelve months and next I'm going over there." But how? Backpacking trips are relatively easy compared to preparing for them and recovering after. What's hard is the big emptiness between them, when you have to be hanging out somewhere thinking and buying and getting mail and piling your goods on the floor and making repairs and laying out maps and just living.

Still clueless, I.

Whatever. Almost time for lunch. Maybe my kitty friend will be there napping in the shrubbery today. The cat knows things. My friend on the ground. We can talk.

I hope.

 

 

Info:

German Tourist aka Christine

Beardoh & Sweetpea

Cam Honan

UltraPedestrian blog

UltraPedestrian site

Hertz — Probably the best place to look for a used car. The New York area has the widest selection but there are locations all over.

 

A few thoughts on how not to effitup like I did:

• Have a definite set of plans, with realistic goals.
• Have a schedule.
• Have the right, tested equipment.
• Know where you're going and what it will be like when you get there.
• Know other people and stay connected to them.
• Ease into it, and readjust as needed early on.
• Have a real home you can return to and live in, or, if not, then
• Have a vehicle that holds everything so you can travel untethered.
• Have contingency plans and bailout options.
• Be prepared for each season and the changeover from one to the next.
• Have a decent setup for package delivery and mail forwarding to wherever you'll be.

 

And...I've got mail! How about that?

 

Matt S. 1:31 AM (6 hours ago)

Living between backpacking trips...

It's easy when you're connected. No getting bored when wife or kids want every last minute you'll give them. Leaves a LOT less room for backpacking.

Transportation ideas:

The NV200 idea isn't bad. Rather than buying new, get a friend (or random internet dude that won't stop pestering you via email) to pick one up for you. Ahead of the trip. There are plenty of options:

https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=nv200&sort=rel&srchType=T

If you can impose upon that "friend" to sell it for you, you should be able to skate away from a summers use of the van for $3-4 thousand dollars (purchase cost + licensing + sales tax + repairs/maintenance - sale price).

Option Rent: rent a SUV from Enterprise for $200/week or $800/month. The cost of buy/sell a used van is ~ 5 months of rental. No buy and sell transactions, no sales tax (10%) hit, and no large capital outlay. I rented a Ford Expedition last year for a fossil and obsidian collecting family trip to Oregon. Needed extra seats because cousins joined us. Worked out great.

Since you mentioned spending $32k new, that kinda coin puts you into used Tesla Model S territory. Like this one:

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/d/marysville-2013-tesla-model-full/6784068113.html

Before you think I'm completely mad, google "tesla camping mode."

a) you aren't pressed for time, so waiting a little longer to "fill up" isn't an issue
b) we have loads of charging stations here in WA (even in the boonies)
c) electrons are 1/3 the price of dino juice and free at Tesla stations with some Tesla's (like the one above)
d) you can charge anywhere there's a 110V outlet
e) Tesla's have EXCELLENT resale value; the car will be worth nearly what you paid after the trip.

Matt

 

Dave sez...

Thanks. You're smart. You've done some serious thinking. I'll be digging through your suggestions for sure.

I did check on renting about 2 1/2 years ago. Budget Rent a Car had the lowest rates I could find, the base rate wasn't bad for a 3-month trip in the tiniest car they offered, but after adding in the taxes and various fees, it came to $1800 a month, and at the end you would have nothing but a receipt.

What I did last year and in 2016 was to rent a place for a week through Airbnb, which left about a 3 or 4 day window to get a mailing address, find a vehicle, get insurance, cut a check, travel to the dealer and do the deal. Hertz worked for me, but just getting from Olympia to either Burien or Beaverton can take a little tap dancing.

I might be out of the driving game before electric vehicles come into their own, but that would be my first choice for sure. Electricity is already available in more places than gasoline, just not in the right form. Every dealer has a charging station but as I remember when I looked up info a couple years ago, most of them take many many hours just so you can go another 100 - 150 miles.

The one question I'm still trying to answer is when you arrive at a trailhead for a week's backpacking, and your vehicle has everything you own inside it, then what? Even an armored car would never be 100% secure. Everything I own right now will fit into two duffel bags and a carry-on pack, but there are some things I can't afford to lose.

But anyhow, here's some random info that might be interesting:

• The Nissan Leaf Experiment: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/the-nissan-leaf-experiment/
• Electric Car vs. Winter: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/10/06/electric-car-vs-winter/
• So I Bought an Electric Car...: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/10/04/so-i-bought-an-electric-car/
• 1400 Miles of Non-Driving in a Tesla: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/04/15/tesla-road-trip/

 

• Electric Vehicle Charging Station Locations: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html
• CarCharging: EV Charging Locations: http://www.carcharging.com/ev-drivers/locations/
• CarStations: Charging Stations: http://carstations.com/
• ChargeMap: community driven map: http://chargemap.com/
• Open Charge Map: http://openchargemap.org/site/
• ChargePoint: Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: http://www.chargepoint.com/
• PlugShare - EV Charging Station Map: http://www.plugshare.com/
• EVgo: Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: https://www.evgo.com/charging-locations/

Thanks again.

-- Dave

 

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Ideas to share? Send email to sosayseff@nullabigmail.com

See if that helps.

Hells? Oh, noes.

Should be trig. Isn't anymore.

OK, I think I've jumped the shark again.

I was planning on hiking the high trail along the western side of Hells Canyon, something I did four years ago. I drove 475 miles from my hideout in the woods to the edge of Hells Canyon, stayed overnight in my car, and then turned around and drove 475 miles back.

When I got up that morning rain was falling. I couldn't face it. I didn't have much view of the sky, but since I saw stars overnight, I figured that the weather was coming in and was going to get worse, even though the forecast didn't say much either way. And that was it.

I had to decide one way or another and I couldn't face a day of rain.

Made it this far.

About two hours later, after I'd driven well up and away from the canyon area, things looked better though there was a big storm out east. I still couldn't tell if the storm was going farther east, or coming west, or going some other direction. I almost turned around and went back, quit my quitting. But meh. Inertia, once set in motion, becomes self-sustaining.

A day and a half later I was back in Olympia, on Friday, and then it rained all night, and all weekend, and half of Sunday night. That would be the night before last. Still fresh in my short-term memory.

It looks like though I want to go out and go backpacking, I just don't feel like actually doing any backpacking.

Looking back the way I came, toward the lonely guy's hotel (far right).

I did make a short drive out of town on Saturday, up the Skokomish River, and spent the night in the woods trying out my new hammock setup. That was nice enough, especially sleeping in a hammock again (best way to sleep ever), but I almost got drenched before I got it up, and mostly wetted out on the short hike back to my car on Sunday. And didn't much enjoy the hiking part. More of the same, you know? And had no place to go at the end to lay out my gear to dry and clean it. Only a 4x5-foot self-storage locker.

This happens.

For a while I went fishing all the time, then just didn't care any more. Built a couple of rods up from blanks — wound on the line guides, glued on cork rings and shaped them into grips by sanding, made them all shipshape and usable.

I did years worth of film developing and printing in a home darkroom, in a basement, then just didn't care much any more, at least about that end of photography. It dead-ended.

Went backpacking for a short while before returning to college for a second pass, then found bicycling. Built several bikes up, starting from the bare frame, made wheels, did it all. Rode STP (Seattle to Portland — 198 miles) in one day. Did RAMROD (Ride Around Mount Rainier In One Day — 156 miles, 10,000 feet of climbing). Did lots of stuff. And then suddenly I didn't care any more.

So back to backpacking, which I hit like crazy for a couple of decades, and now I'm tired and don't want to fuss so much with anything, not even that.

Yesterday I wrote Henry at the hotel in Cuenca, Ecuador. Asked him to let me know when he has an apartment open. No reply yet. I'm pretty much ready to go any time. Don't know what I'll do there, but living on the road is too much bother. I miss going out for lunch, when lunch was the big event of the day, and I miss seeing people on the streets. I miss being a stranger in a strange land. Around here it's all cars, everywhere, and belligerent angry people, all of whome I've met already, too often.

Example: I spent about an hour in Kennewick, WA, looking for the Costco place to buy gas. Geez.

Gazing into the void. (From a Forest Service poster.)

The three cities (Kennewick, Pasco, Richland) are nothing but malls, strip malls, and housing tracts. Might have been nice at one time, when the cities were smaller, with two major rivers meeting there, and lots of parks along them, but now it's the worst of modern life. You can hardly walk from one store in a mall to another store in the same mall because of the traffic. Crazy shit. So I'm kind of waiting for when I can back out of this machine world and get back to where people are people.

I gave my dream a shot and it's crap. Poor me. At least it's only a matter of time. November at the latest. I have an official apartment reservation for November 10, in Cuenca. Thanks to you, my previous self, for thinking of that months ago, as a hedge.

Meanwhile, I'll probably have to wait. I got an eye exam scheduled, but it's July 31. I started a course of vaccinations at Wallgreens, and the final dose is due July 22. So, July. At best/worst I'll probably be here until the end of July.

Last night I remembered that I have a "Senior Citizen Limited Income Pass" for Washington State Parks. Half off. I used it. $12.50 for overnight parking isn't that bad — $375 a month. A set of ear plugs kills any chance of being disturbed, and there's no penalty in using them it's safe there, unlike sleeping in the woods in a state forest, where you never know what might happen in the night.

Will be doing more of that state park business. And probably some actual backpacking. The season is still early and I'm still a sucker, and will get seduced by actual rain-free summer weather if I'm still here when it comes along.

Coda: As it ever has been noted on my report card, so it remains — Frequently disappoints.

Palouse Falls

The not-dry falls of Washington State's channeled scablands. These are the other falls. Palouse Falls.

Energetic. Forceful. Downfalling.

There is a slight trail curling around the basin. No idea what made it, but it's not for hiking.

Downstream. Overlook under a big tree (right), parking lot, and "campground" (way right, hardly visible).

The downstream part looks inviting, and I hear that it can be navigated via kayak.

It is possible to scoot around to the north side of the falls to get a different perspective, bit it's also possible to slip off the edge.

Mostly it's safer to stay behind the fence.

Massive though. Massive falls way out here nowhere.

Yeah, so one more try. Still hot though. Still dusty.

From Jackson Creek Fish Camp I headed east again, and took in Palouse Falls. Impressive, but dry, hot, and dusty (more of the same).

There was a campground there, at the state park of the same name, but it was only a small patch of grass, two sides of which were defined by the gravel parking lot, subject to clouds of dust from it, and had no privacy.

Not much choice for me. I headed south, toward Walla Walla. I thought I could camp in the hills east of town and then head west again.

Along the way I stopped at Lewis and Clark Trail State Park and had a shower. Nice looking place but low and overgrown and would have been fatally buggy to stay in.

The roads out of Walla Walla have changed from four years ago. One, going through the mythical community of Kooskooskie, dead ends now, way short of where I wanted to go, as far as I can tell, and the other, north of there, is gated near the top. Anyway, I could at least find the gated part if not the place I once parked along the other road, so I stayed by the gate, above and east of Walla Walla.

And was attacked by bees.

There were hives, about 50 of them, across a fence just ahead of my car, 50 or 60 feet or so (15m - 20m). As soon as I opened my container of Safeway deviled egg potato salad I had a couple of bees flying at me, banging into me. I kept swatting at them. Not much good.

I folded a paper towel into a mitt and caught the more persistent one and crushed it. A bit later another one came along. Much more aggressive. This one slammed into my face several times. I had to pull it off and throw it downwind, but it kept coming back, so I crushed it too.

About then I finished eating and the bees thinned out. Must have been the smell of my food.

No other bugs. Breezy overnight with frequent gusts of gale-force stuff shaking the car. No rain, not cold. Pretty much OK.

The next day I again buzzed through Yakima far to the west, showered there and ate, and headed back to Rimrock Lake, and camped again at the end of the road where I had parked a few days earlier. All quiet. Probably overrun during the summer vacation season, but I was once again alone.

More info:

Palouse Falls (Wikipedia)

Lewis and Clark Trail State Park (Wikipedia)

Crab Creek Again

Evening view.

Secret parking spot slightly off the road.

Could have been fun, but...hot, no shade, dusty, buggy.

Jerry-rigged sunshade in rear of car relects at least some son while the hills wait for night.

Local color.

So, Dry Falls and Lenore Lake didn't work too well. Given that, I decided to head south and take a second look at Lower Crab Creek, since it wasn't too far off. Maybe, I thought, evening would be better than the morning had been. Maybe the weather would cool. Maybe magic.

After also checking out Billy Clapp Lake, I headed south through Soap Lake (a town), and Ephrata, and aimed in the general direction of Royal City, but a bit east. The roads were good. Billy Clapp Lake was not, especially. Nowhere to camp without paying a bunch, hot, hostile, and so on, although given the right weather, there is what has been called a decent hike along it west side.

Shortly south of Royal City is the Lower Crab Creek Road, which doesn't seem to have a number. I cruised west on that until I spotted a gap in the Russian olive trees and pulled off the main road (dusty gravel). This was immediately west of what shows up on the map as "Smyrna", where the road takes a jag south before it turns straight west again.

Parking was OK. There was a reasonable level of stealth. I thought it could work.

Sitting in the car's shade the 93°F temperature was not too bad. Surely things would cool after sunset. Nope.

By 7:30 p.m. the sun was low, but then the light breeze died and the bugs came out. Mosquitoes. Hungry. Whining. And the air became heavily humid. Nope. Nope.

Time to scrape the maps with my tired eyeballs. Time to swap back into refugee mode.

Here? There? Where?

OK, Jackson Creek Fish Camp. Back to Jackson Creek Fish Camp. It hadn't been bad. It had been good. Chance it.

I bugged out. Unbugged myself. Left bugginess behind. Drove fast, making my own wind. All the bugs finally fell away.

I got to Jackson Creek by 8:20, with the sun slipping behind the cross-river bluffs a few minutes later. No one there, not even fishers. Wow — I had the whole exact entire place to myself. There was a slight breeze. The air was not humid. The lack of shade did not count because the site was cooler in the evening dimness. Fine. I could even urinate into the fire pit at will, one of my favorite conveniences.

I had a decent sleep.

Before I left in the morning two pickup trucks came in, separately, and each left after a few minutes. Other than that I was totally alone. Deal. I didn't complain. The morning sky was blue. Hope returned.

More info:

Crab Creek (Wikipedia)

Lower Crab Creek Unit, Columbia Basin Wildlife Area Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Crab Creek (Columbia National Wildlife Refuge) Washington Trails Association

Google View

Elaeagnus angustifolia "Russian Olive" (Wikipedia)

Dry Falls

First stop after leaving Wenatchee, and bomb making: Dry Falls. It looked like this.

Not dry at all, and no falls. Bummer.

There is a nice visitor's center at the spot, and it has a good view, with lots of info inside as well, and it isn't hot. All good stuff.

It could be fun to explore this area in early spring or late fall when the weather is more agreeable, but I think I got the point just from hanging my toes over the edge.

Definitely deserty here.

And the country goes on forever.

The visitor's center does allow service animals but not pets. Pets are fed to the resident tiger. I missed that part.

Here's the general area as seen from above in 1935.

If the weather hadn't been so hot I might have found the route down to the water, but as it was — meh.

It was a goodly drive, and I was hoping to find a cozy spot where I could camp. Didn't look like there was any.

There is a state park close by, but the whole area is so wide open and sun blasted that I was not impressed.

I did hope to do some hiking (finally) a bit farther south along Lake Lenore, or "Lenore Lakes", however you say it, and I did find the turnout. The route description said something like "Pull off the road at the turnout and leave your car in the steep parking area," which meant in practice that there was just enough room to pull off the road and hit a tiny patch of dirt angling upward at around 30°, and then leaving your car about 10 feet (3m) from the road, all buttoned up to keep out the clouds of dust whirling around every time a vehicle passed, and hope that nothing happened.

The weather was so hot that I didn't even consider going for a vertical hike right up into the hills. There was no point.

There was a much bigger pullout fairly close by, and I chose to go there, take a few careful steps down to the lake, and rinse out a pair of socks. (They are in short supply right now.) While there I eyeballed my maps frantically. Didn't get much of a clue, though I had to go somewhere.

So I continued driving, to another falls, and then some other uninteresting things happened.

More info:

Dry Falls (Wikipedia)

Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park

Lake Lenore

Wenatchee South

Wenatchee/East Wenatchee on a Sunday evening in May from the Cascade foothills to the southwest.

A wider view showing more of the Columbia River valley.

Closeup, relatively speaking.

What it looks like farther upriver, Rocky Reach Dam at left center.

My parking spot.

Although there are three state parks in or near Wenatchee, there isn't much of anywhere to go from Wenatchee, if you want to get into the hills, especially to park for the night.

The first night I was there, I drove north, past Entiat (far past), and then up a torturous, winding dirt road that is really fit only for four-wheel-drive, high clearance vehicles, even though I did make it up there four years ago in a Toyota Yaris, and repeated that trip this year, in a Nissan Versa Note. (Though I have to disclose that the road had been freshly graded in 2018, for some reason, though I did appreciate the improvement.) That trip is around 37 miles (60km) each way — a long, long way to go for a sort of sketchy parking spot.

Going south, the situation is worse. There are three roads up into the hills, but two of them were, at least as recently as two years past, impassable for ordinary vehicles. The third is paved all the way up, but that only gets you to the mission ridge ski area.

The trick is not to miss the undistinguished turnoff two or three miles before then, and then to drive a twisting and extremely dusty road until you can't go any farther, and then to look around for any possible place to park.

Sunday night was crowded, but the place was empty coming out on Monday morning. I'd hate to try going in on a Friday or Saturday.

Back in town Monday morning, I washed the car, picked up some food, and then stopped at Wenatchee Confluence State Park for a shower and for breakfast.

Over in the day-use area there is only one shaded parking spot, and it was open after I finished my shower, so I parked there. While noodling around in the back of my car to pull out food and my home-made backpacking cook kit, a van backed in right beside my car, inches away. There must have been 100 to 200 free spots in the area, all equally sun-blasted, but this person decided to take a chance on rubbing fenders with me. Arrr.

So, despite being chosen as a neighbor by someone of dubious sanity, I went about my business. The other person was a barrel-chested woman who went out walking her dog. She passed me a couple of times and eventually left. In the middle of this, a state park pickup truck approached from the other direction, and stopped in the shade, sitting there with the engine running in a no-parking area, facing me. Made me wonder if I was under surveillance.

Eventually the woman, the dog, and her van left. More eventually, the park vehicle left. By this time I had finished breakfast, which consisted of heating water, adding it to a ziplock bag of pre-assembled ingredients, and then kneading and shaking the bag to mix it all, after which I let it cool before gnawing off one corner of the bag and sucking breakfast out of it, my meal technique for backpacking.

The woman and her dog returned, seemingly out of nowhere, without her van. She asked me in a gravelly alcoholic/heavy smoker voice why I'd been wearing rubber gloves. Not rubber gloves — I had hot food — protecting my hands while making breakfast. "You look like you were making a bomb." "No, I made breakfast and then ate it." Then she left, again.

My best description is to imagine Popeye after a sex change. Big barrel chest, big belly, voice like a bulldozer, walks like a truck.

Then I went to a picnic area where I thought I'd find a water tap. Just after I got there the park truck came back and two armed rangers came to question me. About a report that I was making meth in the parking lot.

Yep. Same woman. Said I was making meth (by mixing my powdered meal with hot water) and/or making and then eating a bomb.

They said she was in the office practically jumping up and down with frightened excitement and all, but no, that wasn't me.

Or it was me but different — I was the person, but the person just making and eating breakfast while you two guys sat in your truck about 30 feet away with me in full sight.

Yeah, uh, right.

Arrr again.

They were pretty cool about it all, and I was too. I had some wine in the car, some rubbing alcohol as a hand sanitizer, and some Heet for stove fuel and that was it. No meth, no explosives, no guns, no secret decoder rings, no dog pornography.

I showed them my second, unopened bag of Soylent, which is what I had been test-eating that day (finishing off the first bag at breakfast that morning). I offered to dig my garbage out of the can if they wanted to look at it but they didn't seem that enthusiastic, so things didn't get that far.

Shortly after that they left, and so did I. Who could know what weird shit might hit the fan next?

I drove east and north. Everything looked disappointing. The sun was full out. The land was hot. The day dragged on.

More info:

Rocky Reach Dam (Wikipedia)

Wenatchee Confluence State Park (Wikipedia)

Soylent (meal replacement) (Wikipedia)

Wenatchee North

The road in to my north-of-Wenatchee parking spot. Probably best considered four-wheel-drive only, though I made it in my Nissan Versa Note. (Columbia River valley in background.)

The far (east) side of the valley.

To the north, it looks like people are living here, so there must be a better road in than the one I took from the east and south.

A better view of the road I took. (Ripples, holes, narrows, and other dodgy spots smoothed out by the distance of the view.)

Salad. Potential salad. Does it bite? I promised not to if it didn't.

Top of the road, where I came in. A sign there warns of the primitive road, in case someone has come in from the opposite direction, so there must be a better way, though it could take days to find it.

Ditto. Top-of-road, to the north, as seen during my evening walk.

My nighttime parking spot, well out of sight, down a spur road that looks like it's been unused, at least so far this year.

So, a little unexpectedly, I ended up in Wenatchee about a day earlier than expected, since I couldn't loiter and/or hike and loiter.

Visiting Wenatchee when the point of my trip was to see some of eastern Washington's Channeled Scablands didn't make sense, since it's outside the scabland area, but I just wanted to see Wenatchee again.

I had tried to find an apartment there in 2014, but was unable to, not in my price range. The options are limited, starting at $1000 per month (with little selection), and going up rapidly from there. If you're willing to rent something for $1800 to $2000 a month, you can get by, but on the other hand, what's the point of that?

It does have three state parks close by, one of them in town, so that's handy. But really, for a city sitting actually touching the Cascade Mountains, there is almost no access to hiking areas. Looking for a place to park overnight is rugged. There are few.

So, the next day was Sunday, and I was able to get to the library, which is one of the highlights of Wenatchee, being open seven days a week. Via email I got notice from my sister that a cousin had died, a year ago in February. I hadn't seen him for 50 years. Didn't recognize him in the obituary photo. My sister now says there are things she wants to do while she has the chance to. Same with me.

I pushed off on Monday.

More info:

Wenatchee, Washington (Wikipedia)